The twenty-first meeting of the Oxera Economics Council (OEC) was held in our Brussels office yesterday. For the first time the event was attended by all 11 current members of the OEC, and welcomed not one, not two, but three Chief Economists as guests, Arno Rasek of the Bundeskartellamt, Etienne Pfister of the Autorité de la concurrence and Tommaso Valletti of DG Comp at the European Commission.

The topic was an information exchange, a long-standing issue in competition economics, and the range of topics discussed reflected this. The discussion took in cheap talk models, public price announcements, managing risk in insurance markets, syndicated loans, the role market research companies, and the trend towards increased transparency through digital channels.

It has been ten years since the Oxera Economics Council was first established, and with many of the founding members in attendance, it is a great Oxera success story to see the group still going strong and continuing to play a pivotal role generating ideas and debate in the application of economics to real-world issues.